amartinson

All I'm saying is that you should not kid yourself that you are going to waltz into a dealership and ask for warranty on your smoked tranny when you've added 50-300+ ft/lbs of torque. The extended warranties are a lot of money and I just wanted Bruno to be aware that he may be giving that up.

You do have a good point though, that you should not give up just because you were told "no" once. As a consumer, you also have some rights. Once again, I would have a long conversation with Dodge about why their dealer wanted to deny me warranty because I added gauges.

BigBlue

[quote author=amartinson link=board=4;threadid=18988;start=0#msg178965 date=1062348151]
Anytime you use non-stock equipment the dealer has the right to deny you warranty. That does not mean that they will, or that it is the correct thing for them to do, but it is their option. Check out the thread in high performance about the guy that is getting crap from his dealer about wanting to install a fuel pressure guage! He merely wants to monitor his engine and they want to void his warranty! It isn't always right or fair, but the bottom line is that when you use power adders or non-stock equipment, it is up to the dealer or the factory as to your warranty status. The dealer paid half of my tranny repair at 41,000 miles because it was bone-stock at the time and well taken care of.
[/quote]

That happened to me. He also told me that by adding an amp to my sound system, they would void the warranty. Even if the computer crapped out, they would blame it on the amp (although I don't know how it would affect it). I reminded him about the Magnunson-Moss Act and he grungingly fixed it. I ended up calling Daimler Chrysler and complaining (this dealership has given me crap on more than one occasion, all because I'm 18) and ended up getting the guy fired.

Bearfoot2

[quote author=BigBlue link=board=4;threadid=18988;start=15#msg179254 date=1062436990]
I ended up calling Daimler Chrysler and complaining (this dealership has given me crap on more than one occasion, all because I'm 18) and ended up getting the guy fired.
[/quote]

Bruno

Allright guys, got a little more information on the situation. First, I'm not familiar with the D-Box, but this is the chip that was installed in my father in-law's truck. He was very happy with it for the first 2500 miles or so until the day he was towing the trailer up a hill and the engine started to misfire and the tranny would start to "shudder" and couldn't decide what gear to be in. The symptoms are like this; under load, the engine would misfire and loose HP and the tranny would shudder and couldn't figure out the gear; without a load, the engine/tranny seemed to be fine.

So he went back the performance shop and they changed the chip. This did not seem to improve the situation, so they took the chip off. That was about 3 months ago.

On his last trip, the transmission started giving him some problems and the engine also started to overheat some and there was a noticeable drop in HP. At that time, the "check engine" light came on.

He took the truck in to Dodge and they found out that one of the sensors was defective. Unfortunately, Bob couldn't remember the name of the sensor but it was some kind of "heat relay" ??? Bob also thinks that they may have upgraded somthing but he wasn't sure.

The dealership changed the sensor, and Bob took off on his trip, and everything went fine. He took it real easy going to the camp ground and the truck (engine and tranny) performed well and without any noticeable drop in HP or mis-shifting.
Unfortunately, they won't be back home for another 10 days and he left the receipt behind so we won't know the name of the sensor until then.

Now, the performance shop thought at first that the chip might be the problem, but if the original chip as well as the second one were doing the exact same thing, seems to me that the problem is not likely to be the chip. It's not very likely that 2 chips in a row have exactly the same issues - I know, nothing's impossible - but still that kinda .

Does this make any sense to anyone?

Bruno

LE

With most fuel boxes wiring harnesses piggybacking into the map sensor, the voltage to the sensor is increased. This added voltage can and will destroy a MAP sensor. When the voltage is out of range (too high or too low), the engine light will come on and the ECM will default to limp mode to get you where you are going. I am not saying this is what the problem is, just giving a possible scenario. I have had this problem more than once.
As far as warranty, and what the dealer can "see" or not see using a scan tool, resetting the ECM prior to a visit will eliminate all signs of any anomolies that may be stored. If this procedure is done correctly, the dealer will know nothing. There are a couple of ways to do this, and pulling the battery cables off (and grounding them to bleed the capacitors) is the easiest. Good luck and try to find a better dealer. LE

amartinson

Disconnecting the battery cables will not clear all of the codes in a ECM. The ECM has a battery back up that will not allow all of the codes to be erased.